Williams Suicide Has People Talking Mental Health

2 years ago

Ohio sees about 1,400 suicides each year. That's the 16th lowest in the nation.

"We're not the best, but we're not the worst either," said Dr. Mark Hurst, medical director for the Ohio Dept. of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

Hurst says the state has a lot of resources to deal with suicides including community behavioral health centers, a phone hotline, emergency rooms, and private care providers.

"The only wrong place to go is nowhere," he said.

Many people will show warning signs before they take their own life. Hurst says you should always take someone seriously if they're talking about suicide.

"If they start talking specifically about a plan, that escalates things even further. When they're talking about being hopeless, not feeling there a way out, not feeling there's a reason to live, all of those things raise a substantial concern," he said.

Hurst says if you suspect someone is thinking about killing themselves, talk with them about it. It's a myth that talking about it makes someone more likely to follow through. Hurst believes the exact opposite is true.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what triggers suicide. Hurst calls is a "complex public health problem."

"For all people who commit suicide we can never really know what was going through their mind at that particular point in time."

When a celebrity commits suicide, Hurst says they will typically see a spike in suicide rates. A lot of that depends on how the situation is covered by the media.